A Bit of This and That

I figure I would keep my keen readers up to date on a few things, as I have some time before my meeting and honestly feel bad that I neglect this blog a bit:

My self employment classes are going well! I can't believe how many subtle nuances there are to having to run your own business though. I just want to create designs and give them to you. I don't often care who you are or what you want to do with them, just let me create! Now I'm concerning myself with financing, promotion... paying the bills... I can see how many people say that to love your work you should have a hobby that you hate (or something like that) because I can imagine a lot of people go this route and begin to not care for their passion as much as they started out. Luckily for all of us, I can't not design, so really this is a means to a productive end.

I'm also very close to finishing a project I've had on the go for far too long now. Luckily this is a friend's side project, and while timelines are a bit of an issue, they've been extremely flexible. Shooting to have this finished by next weekend, and pictures will follow.

Terrifyingly, I'm also writing on the side. At the end of May I finished up the script for the first story arc of a webcomic I'm writing. This was also YEARS in the making: it started off as a Mutants and Masterminds tabletop RPG story that I developed for my friends and GM'd... twice? Someone confirm that... before I had to just write up the ending because the game fell apart. I spent so much time on it though that I couldn't let it end, so I flushed out as much of the story as I could, scoured my contacts for an artist and began building the website. More updates on this to follow, as I'd love to see it take off, but the entire point of that ramble was now that the first part is done, I've moved on to a completely different story!! We'll hashtag this one #Avondale for now.

Also working a commission or two on the side, but those aren't important ;)

WEBCOMIC ART!!!

Thanks for reading!

Free Thoughts While In Class

You do not sell the product itself, but the overall use for it. I sell a brand identity, I sell customer recognition, better marketing, and ultimately yourself to your customers. I am a means to an end: You do not see just a computer anymore, you see the brand (IBM, MAC). Apple has become more than a brand name, it’s a household word, started by a combination of Steve Jobs creating a device to fill a business need, and Paul Rand spinning it to become an icon. Few people realize that they want adhesive medical strips, or that they need facial tissues these days, because brand recognition has trained us to want a Band-Aid and a Kleenex, and that is my ultimate goal: to take my client’s concept or original idea about who they are or what their business is, and help them develop their identity to the point that it becomes synonymous with the service or product that they provide. In a world of less and less “disposable time”, my desire is to help my clients’ consumers recognize the visual brand of their product over their competitors.

Thanks for reading!